It seems that when I use the Coleman Camping fuel that seems to have a pink tint to it, it does not work all that great. Supposedly, white gas is the purest form of naptha and has less impurities and no benzene. My subjective experience with ethanol matches your experience. So I guess you are effectively evening out all the variables you encounter when buying some form of fuel at the local big box store and there's no real way to know the grade or quality of what is inside. In light of this, I suspect your technique is the best.

@@MountainParameters Thanks for the quick response. I just found out about the benzine content, so I won't be using it any more. This my first year with an electric pocket warmer (large 10000mAM size) and I'm liking the convenience.

@@ropeyarn 10,000 mAh sounds like "Chinese amp hours" as the handwarmer would at a minimum have to house 2 x 21700 cells in parallel (and the highest capacity top of the line 21700 cells that I can source are actually 4,800 mAh each, which the Chinese typically do not use because they are too expensive). But for a short walk around the neighborhood to walk the dog (EG, less than 2 hours), the convenience factor of battery power is great for sure.

Kegland sells them on their site, currently listed at $7.90 AUD plus shipping, search for "Replacement Silicone O-ring set for RAPT Pill".

We purchase large industrial quantities of catalyst material from an ISO certified catalyst manufacturing plant located in the USA, usually once a year. They do not sell retail quantities of catalyst. We do not have 'coils', all our catalyst is in sheets of platinum precipitated onto safil substrate material (not asbestos as sometimes assumed). More details on the substrate and the platinum catalyst material is often mentioned in the videos.

Works great! radiates the most heat of all my warmers. one test i did was blocking the tab holes that are in the head. My thought was vapor escape and more vapor going up and out the catalyst. I found I was getting a slight but measurable temp drop! I think having them open has something to do with oxygen. repeated with standard Jon e with the same results.

If you use Google Earth to extend a straight line from the cam location through the approximate location of the shaft of light, an extension of the line can take you through Shadow Lake backcountry lodge, or perhaps Castle Junction where two major highways intersect. In the comments for the webcam user Knut commented that he sees shafts of light on this cam often in winter, and he assumes they are related to Castle Junction. It seems most probable then that the shafts of light are some sort of reflection from Castle Junction made possible by some sort of atmospheric conditions that are present in winter. Parks Canada does run a traffic cam at Castle Jct., so this winter I'll have to keep an eye on the Aurora Cam and if I see it again, take a look at the Castle Jct traffic cams.

I guess it fell off the radar because it did not seem to be getting much interest. As the temp in our back yard hit 1.9C this morning and the peaks above us got fresh snow yesterday, it's probably a good time to consider it for this fall.

@@MountainParameters 2C in August, dаmn!

That is interesting. I have 4 weather stations on site right now: 1 KestrelMet, (made by Nielsen-Kellerman and is sold by and runs Ambient software) 2 Tempest (they sent me another when I kept insisting the wind speed readings were very inaccurate, and the second returns to same data as the first), and one Ecowitt with additional temp sensors and a WH46 aqi quality sensor (all of these are public and can be seen easily by looking up Banff, AB on your favourite site(s)). If you'd like to view the AQI data for our Ecowitt WH46 sensor) review will be coming up soon), you can do so on the aqicn.org website and search for the "Banff South" location situated in Banff, AB. (Canada). The KestrelMet (with spinning blade anemometer) is sited to be less accurate for wind and best positioned for rainfall because it is the only one with a tipping rain gauge. Yesterday we received some heavy rain during a brief intense lightning storm. The local Environment Canada Gov't weather station recorded a total of 7.7mm of rain. I am located about 4 km from the ECCC station and in a slight rain shadow compared to their site. My KestrelMet recorded 6.9mm, and the Ecowitt (more exposed to wind) recorded 6.2mm. The Tempest situated right beside the Ecowitt recorded 48mm, and the other one recorded 46mm. During the storm, the Ecowitt recorded peak winds gusts of 31km/hr, at the same time window, the Tempest maximum gust recorded was 17.6 km/hr. It is interesting to note that the KestrelMet is situated in a location that is sheltered from the wind, and optimised only for collecting rainfall. At that same time, it recorded a peak gust of 19.1 km/hr, and the Environment Canada station reported gusts of 29-30 km/hr. In the year since I started this project, I have had two contacts at Weatherflow (Tempest), and the last email I sent bounced, so I'm thinking I may be onto a third if I try again. With Ecowitt, I have had the same person in China who responds to me within 12 hrs, and who's English skills and knowledge of the products and weather principles make me think I am dealing with a professional meteorologist in the USA. With Ambient, I had to deal with at least a half dozen contacts, and it took me over a year to receive my test unit, which I still have to review. As Davis apparently did not think I was qualified to do an honest review of one of their units, they told me to go pound sand. If you need a lightning sensor, then the Tempest is the only one that has it included with the stock configuration. During intense lightning activity I compared real time strikes up to 40km out between the Tempest and Blitzortung.org and they were in about 65% agreement up to a radius of about 40km out. For some reason the CTG strikes closest to our station were the ones the Tempest missed the most. But if you want to add sensors such as AQI and configure alerts, the Ecowitt is the better choice, and it is the best overall, in my opinion. On the Tempest BTW, you can bypass the solar panels and install your own battery pack or power supply quite easily (and I made a video on how to do this). Overall, after my experience of about a year, (and not selling any of them), I'd say you made a good choice in choosing the Ecowitt for a PWS. Oh, the one caveat I should mention with the Ecowitt: it has a heater element that stops the unit from icing up in the winter. I noticed that if you leave it plugged in, at -30C it can raise the reported temp by as much as 10C. So if you do live in a climate where the temp fluctuate below freezing diurnally, only leave it plugged in for perhaps an hour at a time.

As far as I'm aware, there have not been any great advances in battery chemistry that have made their way to being integrated into consumer products. Therefore my seat of the pants math tells me that a unit that would generate enough heat to keep your hands warm in winter would need to weigh something like 2 pounds. If you have any more information such as a link to the product it may facilitate shedding more light on the matter.

Hmm, I read your comments out loud to 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'. She replied, "I do not know who Bob Newhart is, but it sounds to me like he must have told only Dad Jokes which he kept in a Dad-A-Base ". Sigh...

Oh how funny! Keep up the great work.

All are petroleum distillates, naptha is a broad category, white gas/Coleman fuel is a specific refined naptha product, camping fuel can refer to white gas or other stove fuels. Therefor when using 'camping fuel', you need to curate your choice as some may perform better than others.

I'm looking around at the moment for a DMR radio that supports zones and is IPX6 rated for use by professional guides. As far as recreational radios, recently I have obtained some radios from both TID and Quangsheng, and for weekend use, they seem to be good value for the money they cost. I'm guessing that these new arrivals on the market will be viewed by brands like Baofang as a threat to their market dominance. Obviously features such as bluetooth programming (I think this can only be done for analog radios right now), and charging via USB C, will become the standard from now on.

Thanks Bob! Indeed it would seem that it is not possible to make a vertically polarized monopole and keep the VSWR below 3db with a bandwidth greater than 10MHz, however it would seem from looking at many of the 'dual band' rubber ducks the manufacturers send out, they live in a different dimension. The TID antenna in this demonstration says, "136-174" and "400-470" on the bottom, yet the VNA chart shows that this is a hopeless aspiration!

@@MountainParameters EXACTLY!!!!! Just get one for the band/freq you want to TX on - job done.

@@DoctorBobP Ironically, I have noticed with stock supposed, "Dual-Band" antennas from different manufacturers they are tuned to different 'sweet spots'. For example, I tested some TYT stock antennas last year, and they were tuned best to 155 MHz, so I advised my clients they would be suitable for logging roads. What does this mean? Simply put, if you do not have equipment to test your stock antennas, you probably should not use it until you can determine if you might (or might not) be damaging your radio with excessive standing waves being created every time you transmit with a stock antenna.

Hello Jim. The order form has exhaustive information about all the aspects of the springs.

The Mod: A Thermacell is not a handwarmer. The addition of catalyst material is so the Thermacell will have an exothermic reaction just like a handwarmer. (Butane and propane themselves are hydrocarbons, and their combustion in the presence of oxygen supports an exothermic reaction.) Otherwise you are burning fuel and have a fuel burning furnace in your pocket, not a risk I really care to take. The Butane: It's not mainly a high-altitude thing, it's a 'cold weather' thing (although atmospheric pressure can change the boiling point of butane). The dollar store propane is 'n-butane' and is the same one they sell in the Asian market stores. The boiling point of n-butane is approximately -0.5 degrees Celsius (31.1 degrees Fahrenheit) at atmospheric pressure. The boiling point of isobutane is approximately -11.7 degrees Celsius (10.9 degrees Fahrenheit) at atmospheric pressure. N-butane is much less expensive than iso-butane. The boiling point of propane at atmospheric pressure is approximately -42.1 degrees Celsius (-43.8 degrees Fahrenheit). So by mixing propane with n-butane the high cost of using iso-butane can be avoided, and your device can work at much lower temperatures than -6C (due to decreased pressure, -6C is about the functional equivalent you can use an iso-butane canister for cooking at in winter. We just had -40C temps where I am). That's why all camping stove fuel canisters use a butane/propane mix for winter camping. You cannot place pure propane in a butane canister because they have thinner walls and would explode under the higher pressure, that's why the winter camping canisters have about a 20% mix of propane along with some iso-butane and the rest n-butane.

Last sentence in the first paragraph. The risk is between your ears. Product liability would have pulled this product off the market 20 years ago if this was an issue. This product has been inadvertently placed while lit in pockets, backpacks,etc hundreds of thousands of times without incident. Thanks for the lesson in butane & propane.

That's the common story, I'd say, like you, half the folks find these things in a drawer. I must have collected by now a hundred hand warmers of various shapes and sizes over the years. And more ironic, we just went through the cold snap we all got, and it hit -40C here, and when we went out for our daily hikes, I never used one (I did use the electric gloves however)! I suspect my kids will simply throw them out when they inherit them from the guy they always refer to as the 'boomer'. Sigh...

The wick is not required for the proper functioning of a hand warmer, that's why most hand warmers do not have them. Do not worry about replacing the wick, pull what's left out of your device and throw it away. Replacing the catalyst in the head is the first step. Something else to look for is make sure the packing material at the top of the reservoir is not charred and therefore blocking the evaporation of fumes to the catalyst. That's where a layer of carbon felt comes into play. I think you'll find lots of videos in the handwarmer playlist cover the methodology of these maintenance procedures.

@@MountainParameters Thank you for your reply. I can't get the wick out as it has disintegrated and there are only a few wisps left. The packing material at the top of the reservoir actually has a metal mesh grid over it, and it is quite clean, but the burner looks sooty. However, I tried lighting it by putting a gas lighter flame directly onto the burner for a few minutes and it worked fine. I was able to use the Jon E twice last week while playing golf in zero degrees centigrade, so I'm all set to brave the present Arctic conditions we're having in the UK. I'm very grateful for your help.

@@ng21sm12 Must be a soggy golf game! Especially that now I see you have another major winter storm Isha to deal with. I've noticed an uptick of orders from the UK that last week, so now I know why. Don't worry about the wick, you can just leave it. If that mesh barrier has charred cotton under it, it would be worth it to remove it and clean the charred cotton out. Like the wick, that mesh serves no function, so you can just dispose of it. Last fall an outdoor outfitter contacted me, he had a couple of dozen replacement heads for the Giant he didn't want anymore, so he sent them to me and I put them on the order form on consignment, I think there are still a few of them left.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the weather and golf course have been cold and soggy, so much so that I've spent the last few days in bed with a raging cold and an eye infection! My Jon E might benefit from new parts, but buying from overseas is probably more expensive than the Jon E is worth; however, for reference, what would I look for on line?@@MountainParameters

Deprive it of Oxygen. Some folks use an air tight metal can, a sealed food container, or even a medium size ziplock bag.

@cpufrost, I see you have made a video of an incorrect installation (similar to my incorrect installation) of your Tempest swaying on a pole, which will most definitely give you incorrect rain and wind readings. If you could elaborate on your support experiences that would probably be helpful for others. Also I noted in the forum that in July of last year you mention you were on your third Tempest. As it is now January of the following year, it would appear you have gone through 7 subsequent units in 6 months?

Calculate it like this, with a 145F Jon-e Giant head, about 1.5ml/hr., with a 165F head, about 2ml per hour. Any empty Giant will take about 50ml of fuel. So if you're going out for the day, you do not necessarily need to fill it with 50ml of fuel, 25ml will be good.

Those also seemed to suffer the fate of being discontinued during the pandemic and I cold not source them anymore, so I removed them from the order form. However, I seem to recall a saw a few of them lingering with old stock when I was looking for some S-Boston repair parts the other day. I'll have another look and if I find them, I'll stick them on the order form and update here. In the meantime the Red Star at 3.5"x2-1/4"x3/4" is the most compact that we have.

The S-Boston was the only one I knew of that had that feature. Sadly it is no longer made.

The S-Boston is no longer made, so at the moment, the best we have for performance in the pocket is the Red Star. For hanging around the neck and heating a larger area, it would be the Jon-e Giant.

Ok merci 👍

Thanks for the comment. I'm sure that's what most people will do, unless it is out of stock as it was recently. In my case, it took me about 2 hours to do this, so I figure I paid myself about $30.00/hr for my time. As many will not want to run an extension cord up their pole to power an AC Adapter, this morning I put together a battery pack that uses two 18650 batteries in parallel that I placed into an empty generic bike battery case I had sitting around. The advantage of the bike case is that it is water resistant, and meant to mount on the downtube of the bike, so it will attach easily to the mount pole for the weather station. The capacity of the one I did this morning is about 6600 mAH, so it should keep the Tempest going in dreary winter weather for about a month. If there is enough interest, I'll do up a follow up video on the process.

@MountainParameters I apologize if I sounded like a jerk. That wasn't my intent of course. I have to give you lots of credit for your ingenuity. Pretty cool what you did. Thank you for sharing it.

@@YukonHawk1 Not at all! I think your observation was right on point, and in the Tempest forum the prevailing sentiment agrees. As it works out apparently, it can be very expensive to get the accessories send offshore to places like Europe because of high shipping costs and 25% VAT. So for domestic users in the USA, unless they are hobbyists that like to solder stuff, or like me, retired and sit home alone all day making sure the house is clean for She Who Must Be Obeyed when she gets home from work (which I fail at apparently), it would make perfect sense to simply order one. I'm over the moon when a 'like' gets left, and even better when I get a comment! Given that I'm not even selling anything, and have no affiliate links, I guess that's pretty sad!

@MountainParameters I hear you loud and clear about obeying orders 🤣🤣 I am 61 but not retired. I love to tinker with things as well. It gives one's self great satisfaction when you build something with your own two hands. I have a Tempest system also and love it. I've had it for 2 years and it's been rock solid and very accurate. It sits about 30 feet off the ground at the peak of my garage. I also have piconsole that I set up from git hub and view all the stats on a 19 inch monitor. My wife thinks I'm nuts. 🤔

You're thinking that Elon Musk never gets cold hands. I assume he takes bespoke ski vacations where his security detail may carry all the spare batteries he needs for his electronic handwarmers perhaps? (SWMBO will not carry my spare cells for me, or buy me a Tesla, sigh...) The reason, so SWMBO tells me, "consider this for your après ski. If a Tesla Mark III falls into your hot tub at your Zermatt resort, the outcome may be different than if your handwarmer with a Mark III cell in it falls into the hot tub". SWMBO is not one for OHMS Law...😗

Thanks for that Jady, 18650 cells need to be protected when charging, not discharging. The horror stories you see on KZbin depicting batteries experiencing thermal runaway are when they are charging (usually when balance charging has shit the bed), and of course a short circuit can cause a fire as well. Single Li-Ion cells do not have to be balanced charged because you remove them from the battery case and charge each one individually. However, Li-Ion should not be discharged below 2.5v per call or they can become damaged to the point where they are no longer able to recharge. The chargers have the protection circuit in them for overcharging (where they have a voltage cutoff at 4.2v to avoid overcharge). When used for these boot heater footbeds, the concept is, when the cells in series in the battery case fall below the 3v mark the footbeds will not be producing enough heat to keep your feet warm, so the user removes them and replaces them with fresh cells. At the end of the day, the last of the day's cells are removed from the battery pack and go back into a (protected) charger, so they cannot be discharged too low. The switch has no protection circuit, it pulse modulates the current to create the various power settings of high/medium/low. In fact, I just finished removing the protection circuits from a new set of protected 18650 cells for SWMBO's boot heaters to get them ready for this season.

@MountainParameters the ol common sense circuit, makes sense. As it turns out, I carry a multimeter every day, never thought to just use that to check. I'll put these on the "I want" list 👍 How's your stock on the DIY kits?

@@LovesTorque As a backcountry warden staying in cabins with solar, and having to service remote trail cameras, there was always a multimeter with me on one of the pack horses or the saddle bag. Last year on a biking holiday in Scotland, my son noticed I still had one, and asked, "You are definitely eccentric, who else carries a multi meter when they are travelling"? He had a fair point as we were not on eBikes, but I guess now we know. At the moment I think there are 2 of those kits here, and a few of the 6 bank chargers for 18650 cells.

You can experiment with using aromatic terpenes. Terpenes can act as solvents or carriers for the naptha. Terpenes can help facilitate the reaction by providing a suitable environment for the naptha. We like to use mint terpenes.

That's interesting. I made this video when one client had the battery cradle detach from the PCB, which is the one that I soldered back in this video. Given your experience, I think we can now appreciate why that happened to him. Thanks for giving us a head's up on this, and thanks to the original client who patiently waited for me to fix his unit. Although I have also had one faulty temperature controller, fortunately, I have not had any reports of the roughly 100 or so Pills I've shipped since then succumbing to this same problem.

Thanks John!

My apologies Jason, I normally place a link to the order form at the bottom of the description. However, it looks like I forgot this time. Here is a link to it: forms.gle/MSdEjDxDv5DFvttj6

It seems that Covid saw a lot of the cheaper but usable generic hand warmers drop off the edge of the earth. I just heard from the Korean manufacturer of the S-Boston last week. He tells me that that product is now discontinued and they have no plans to manufacture more of them. This is a double shame because not only was the product good, the manufacturer was one of the best I have had the pleasure to do business with. I am expecting a batch of 500 of the 'Red Star' perhaps this week. I then plan to put proper catalyst and a carbon felt strip into them and market those. I ended up picking that unit as it seems the form-factor of them was the best I could find after we were able to place proper catalyst into them. I'm recommending that anyone that is interested can go ahead and use our order form (link is at the bottom of the description), and place an order that will lock in the introductory price and free (mainland USA street) shipping for them. No payment request will be made until I actually have them in hand and ready to ship.

@@MountainParameters Thank you for letting me know. I was on the look out for one of the S-Bostons since I found your channel. Hopefully another manufacturer decides they will want to create some more in the future. I'll put in an order for one of the Red Stars!

​@@MountainParameters What a market failure Do you think there is any chance that a large enough preorder/group buy of S-boston's could potentially change their mind ? Thanks in advance

@@paulsansonetti7410 Thanks for the idea Paul. In my experience, most of the manufacturers have an MOQ requirement (Minimum Order Quantity), so a group buy would probably have to be in the order of 500 units (which would be a difficult goal I think). Last time I talked to Jung (the owner of S-Boston), he indicated he may re-evaluate putting them on the market again in the future. In the meantime, that's why I went ahead and got a bunch of the Red Star so I would be able to offer a functional alternative. So far the feedback on those has been positive.

@@MountainParameters thanks homie Are you familiar with fortress clothing,their baselayers especially ? I really think the S-boston just like Fortress clothing's base layers should sell itself,the marketing must completely sucks So many people would want one if they just knew they are a thing